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Peace and Liberty. Semper Fidelis.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Guest Blog: George Friedman of Stratfor: Ferocious, Weak and Crazy: The North Korean Strategy

Editor's Note: George Friedman originally wrote this Geopolitical
Weekly on North Korea's nuclear strategy on Jan. 29. More than two months
later, the geopolitical contours of the still-evolving crisis have become more
clear, so we believe it important to once again share with readers the
fundamentals outlined in this earlier forecast.

North Korea's state-run media reported
Sunday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered the country's top
security officials to take "substantial and high-profile important state
measures," which has been widely interpreted to mean that North Korea is
planning its third nuclear test. Kim said the orders were retaliation for the
U.S.-led push to tighten U.N. sanctions on Pyongyang following North Korea's
missile test in October. A few days before Kim's statement emerged, the North
Koreans said future tests would target the United States, which North Korea
regards as its key adversary along with Washington's tool, South Korea.

North Korea has been using the threat
of tests and the tests themselves as weapons against its neighbors and the
United States for years. On the surface, threatening to test weapons does not
appear particularly sensible. If the test fails, you look weak. If it succeeds,
you look dangerous without actually having a deliverable weapon. And the closer
you come to having a weapon, the more likely someone is to attack you so you
don't succeed in actually getting one. Developing a weapon in absolute secret
would seem to make more sense. When the weapon is ready, you display it, and
you have something solid to threaten enemies with.

North Korea, of course, has been doing
this for years and doing it successfully, so what appears absurd on the surface
quite obviously isn't. On the contrary, it has proved to be a very effective
maneuver. North Korea is estimated to have a gross domestic product of about
$28 billion, about the same as Latvia or Turkmenistan. Yet it has maneuvered
itself into a situation where the United States, Japan, China, Russia and South
Korea have sat down with it at the negotiating table in a bid to persuade it
not to build weapons. Sometimes, the great powers give North Korea money and
food to persuade it not to develop weapons. It sometimes agrees to a halt, but
then resumes its nuclear activities. It never completes a weapon, but it
frequently threatens to test one. And when it carries out such tests, it claims
its tests are directed at the United States and South Korea, as if the test
itself were a threat.

There is brilliance in North Korea's
strategy. When the Soviet Union collapsed, North Korea was left in dire
economic straits. There were reasonable expectations that its government would
soon collapse, leading to the unification of the Korean Peninsula. Naturally,
the goal of the North Korean government was regime survival, so it was
terrified that outside powers would invade or support an uprising against it.
It needed a strategy that would dissuade anyone from trying that. Being weak in
every sense, this wasn't going to be easy, but the North Koreans developed a
strategy that we described more than 10 years ago as ferocious, weak and crazy.
North Korea has pursued this course since the 1990s, and the latest
manifestation of this strategy was on display last week. The strategy has
worked marvelously and is still working.

A Three-Part Strategy

First, the North Koreans positioned themselves as ferocious by appearing
to have, or to be on the verge of having, devastating power. Second, they
positioned themselves as being weak such that no matter how ferocious they are,
there would be no point in pushing them because they are going to collapse
anyway. And third, they positioned themselves as crazy, meaning pushing them
would be dangerous since they were liable to engage in the greatest risks
imaginable at the slightest provocation.

In the beginning, Pyongyang's ability
to appear ferocious was limited to the North Korean army's power to shell
Seoul. It had massed artillery along the border and could theoretically devastate
the southern capital, assuming the North had enough ammunition, its artillery
worked and air power didn't lay waste to its massed artillery. The point was
not that it was going to level Seoul but that it had the ability to do so.
There were benefits to outsiders in destabilizing the northern regime, but
Pyongyang's ferocity -- uncertain though its capabilities were -- was enough to
dissuade South Korea and its allies from trying to undermine the regime. Its
later move to develop missiles and nuclear weapons followed from the strategy
of ferocity -- since nothing was worth a nuclear war, enraging the regime by
trying to undermine it wasn't worth the risk.

Many nations have tried to play the
ferocity game, but the North Koreans added a brilliant and subtle twist to it:
being weak. The North Koreans advertised the weakness of their economy,
particularly its food insecurity, by various means. This was not done overtly,
but by allowing glimpses of its weakness. Given the weakness of its economy and
the difficulty of life in North Korea, there was no need to risk trying to
undermine the North. It would collapse from its own defects.

This was a double inoculation. The
North Koreans' ferocity with weapons whose effectiveness might be questionable,
but still pose an unquantifiable threat, caused its enemies to tread carefully.
Why risk unleashing its ferocity when its weakness would bring it down? Indeed,
a constant debate among Western analysts over the North's power versus its
weakness combines to paralyze policymakers.

The North Koreans added a third layer
to perfect all of this. They portrayed themselves as crazy, working to appear
unpredictable, given to extravagant threats and seeming to welcome a war.
Sometimes, they reaffirmed they were crazy via steps like sinking South Korean
ships for no apparent reason. As in poker, so with the North: You can play
against many sorts of players, from those who truly understand the odds to
those who are just playing for fun, but never, ever play poker against a nut.
He is totally unpredictable, can't be gamed, and if you play with his head you
don't know what will happen.

So long as the North Koreans remained
ferocious, weak and crazy, the best thing to do was not irritate them too much
and not to worry what kind of government they had. But being weak and crazy was
the easy part for the North; maintaining its appearance of ferocity was more
challenging. Not only did the North Koreans have to keep increasing their
ferocity, they had to avoid increasing it so much that it overpowered the
deterrent effect of their weakness and craziness.

A Cautious Nuclear Program

Hence, we have North Korea's eternal nuclear program. It never quite
produces a weapon, but no one can be sure whether a weapon might be produced.
Due to widespread perceptions that the North Koreans are crazy, it is widely
believed they might rush to complete their weapon and go to war at the
slightest provocation. The result is the United States, Russia, China, Japan
and South Korea holding meetings with North Korea to try to persuade it not to
do something crazy.

Interestingly, North Korea never does
anything significant and dangerous, or at least not dangerous enough to break
the pattern. Since the Korean War, North Korea has carefully calculated its
actions, timing them to avoid any move that could force a major reaction. We
see this caution built into its nuclear program. After more than a decade of
very public ferocity, the North Koreans have not come close to a deliverable
weapon. But since if you upset them, they just might, the best bet has been to
tread lightly and see if you can gently persuade them not to do something
insane.

The North's positioning is superb:
Minimal risky action sufficient to lend credibility to its ferocity and
craziness plus endless rhetorical threats maneuvers North Korea into being a
major global threat in the eyes of the great powers. Having won themselves this
position, the North Koreans are not about to risk it, even if a 20-something
leader is hurling threats.

The China Angle and the Iranian Pupil

There is, however, a somewhat more interesting dimension emerging. Over
the years, the United States, Japan and South Korea have looked to the Chinese
to intercede and persuade the North Koreans not to do anything rash. This
diplomatic pattern has established itself so firmly that we wonder what the
actual Chinese role is in all this. China is currently engaged in territorial
disputes with U.S. allies in the South and East China seas. Whether anyone
would or could go to war over islands in these waters is dubious, but the
situation is still worth noting.

The Chinese and the Japanese have been
particularly hostile toward one another in recent weeks in terms of rhetoric
and moving their ships around. A crisis in North Korea, particularly one in
which the North tested a nuclear weapon, would inevitably initiate the
diplomatic dance whereby the Americans and Japanese ask the Chinese to
intercede with the North Koreans. The Chinese would oblige. This is not a great
effort for them, since having detonated a nuclear device, the North isn't
interested in doing much more. In fact, Pyongyang will be drawing on the test's
proverbial fallout for some time. The Chinese are calling in no chits with the
North Koreans, and the Americans and Japanese -- terribly afraid of what the
ferocious, weak, crazy North Koreans will do next -- will be grateful to China
for defusing the "crisis." And who could be so churlish as to raise
issues on trade or minor islands when China has used its power to force North
Korea to step down?

It is impossible for us to know what
the Chinese are thinking, and we have no overt basis for assuming the Chinese
and North Koreans are collaborating, but we do note that China has taken an
increasing interest in stabilizing North Korea. For its part, North Korea has
tended to stage these crises -- and their subsequent Chinese interventions --
at quite useful times for Beijing.

It should also be noted that other
countries have learned the ferocious, weak, crazy maneuver from North Korea.
Iran is the best pupil. It has convincingly portrayed itself as ferocious via
its nuclear program, endlessly and quite publicly pursuing its program without
ever quite succeeding. It is also persistently seen as weak, perpetually facing
economic crises and wrathful mobs of iPod-wielding youths. Whether Iran can
play the weakness card as skillfully as North Korea remains unclear -- Iran
just doesn't have the famines North Korea has.

Additionally, Iran's rhetoric at times
can certainly be considered crazy: Tehran has carefully cultivated perceptions
that it would wage nuclear war even if this meant the death of all Iranians.
Like North Korea, Iran also has managed to retain its form of government and
its national sovereignty. Endless predictions of the fall of the Islamic
republic to a rising generation have proved false.

I do not mean to appear to be criticizing
the "ferocious, weak and crazy" strategy. When you are playing a weak
hand, such a strategy can yield demonstrable benefits. It preserves regimes,
centers one as a major international player and can wring concessions out of
major powers. It can be pushed too far, however, when the fear of ferocity and
craziness undermines the solace your opponents find in your weakness.

Diplomacy is the art of nations
achieving their ends without resorting to war. It is particularly important for
small, isolated nations to survive without going to war. As in many things, the
paradox of appearing willing to go to war in spite of all rational calculations
can be the foundation for avoiding war. It is a sound strategy, and for North
Korea and Iran, for the time being at least, it has worked.

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A Born-Again Christian Conservative and Fundamentalist. A Republican with a very pro-defense, pro-US Cold War view of politics and the world. I also have, as a non-Jew, a Pro-Israel political and religious position as a born-again Christian Conservative.